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Victorian pre-selection process challenged in court

BRENDAN TREMBATH: A Labor Party pre-selection battle has ended up in the Victoria’s Supreme Court. Four unions are challenging the ALP's attempt to parachute Eddie McGuire's brother, Frank McGuire, into the seat.

They say they're sick of the arrogance of party powerbrokers and are seeking an injunction to stop any candidate being endorsed until the party's local members have their say.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The state seat of Broadmeadows in Melbourne's west needs a new member after the former Victorian premier, John Brumby, decided to resign after his election defeat. The by-election will be held next month.

The Victorian ALP executive has ditched the usual pre-selection process and asked the party's National Executive to choose the candidate; a move that could see Frank McGuire, the brother of TV and AFL personality Eddie McGuire, parachuted into the role.

A former journalist, Mr McGuire hasn't been an ALP member and doesn't live in the electorate, although he grew up there. But he's understood to have the backing of the power broking Federal MPs Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy.

The decision to bypass the grass-roots selection process has outraged several unions and local party members who want to have their say on the candidate. Tim Kennedy is the Victorian branch secretary of the National Union of Workers.

TIM KENNEDY: There are sections within the Administrative Committee of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party seeking to ignore our democratic principles and are seeking to use the National Executive in that game. We hope the National Executive sees through that and doesn't play a role in that.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Tim Kennedy says the NUW doesn't have a preferred candidate for the by-election. But local councillor, Burhan Yigit is understood to have considerable support from the unions and local ALP members.

Mr Kennedy says it's crucial that an injunction is granted to stop the National Executive from choosing the candidate.

TIM KENNEDY: There are sections of our party who continue to ignore the democratic rules and constitutional principles of our party and we believe that for the health of the party that members of our party should have a democratic say in accordance of the rules of our party about who represents them.

We think it's important for the confidence of members in the party and generally in the community that confidence in the Labor Party lives out its democratic principles. So we think it's quite arrogant and a concern for us. It looks bad, it is bad and it doesn't make sense.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Dr Paul Strangio from Monash University says the Victorian branch's decision to give the the National Executive the choice of candidate can be looked at in two ways.

PAUL STRANGIO: One is that the Shorten/Conroy sub-faction of the right have joined with the socialist left to disenfranchise local members and impose their own preferred candidate.

But the second scenario is that the Administrative Committee has actually had to resort to this intervention because they can't trust the local branches to provide a legitimate outcome because they know there has been branch stacking within those local branches.

So neither, as I have said, is a healthy sign for the Victorian ALP.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: How much credence do you place on those allegations of branch stacking?

PAUL STRANGIO: There's some telltale signs, in particular that there are large numbers of concession memberships and that that normally tells us the story that there is branch stacking.

I think the other thing we, provides some context to this is that this is a very safe Labor seat; of course it sits on a margin of 20 per cent at the moment. They're the sort of branches where you often find branch stacking occurring because there's a prize at the end of it, there's a safe seat.

So you put those two together, I think the suggestions that there's some problems out there are probably legitimate.